A Little Help from my Friends

 

Once again I'm reminded that people interpret information differently and what I can see in my mind's eye may be quite different from how someone else processes the information.

And that's the thing, isn't it.  Communication can only happen when people see things in different ways, but are able to communicate what the information means to others.

Right now society is being inundated with information, many of it just plain wrong (or wrong headed, at least) or not the whole story, or being filtered through different experiences than others have had.

Just because something isn't true for you, doesn't mean it's not true for someone else.

Just because I process something better in one way, doesn't mean someone else needs a different lens to see the same information in order to understand it.

Working with other weavers/students I have had to come to an understanding that saying the same thing, but louder, doesn't help the listener if they need a different perspective to understand what I'm saying.

It is one of the things that keeps me writing this blog, because I keep trying to help people understand what is happening via text (mostly) when what we are dealing with is not exactly text friendly.

Trying to explain physical processes, or how threads interlace, or how a loom functions, when those things are best done in other ways has been a challenge.  Mostly I manage to make it work, but some days I might not be feeling well and my personal processing powers are faulty.

And sometimes you just have to ask for help.  You have to communicate with another person and say, here's a problem, I can't seem to fix it, do you have any suggestions?  And sometimes that is all it takes.  Sometimes just articulating the problem is enough to find my way to a solution.  Sometimes the person I asked for help goes "sure hold on let me crunch this" and then be grateful when a few minutes later they hand you the solution.

I am grateful to my students for showing me how many different ways people can approach a problem, and helping me to understand better how they process information so that I can help others based on learning more about different ways of looking, seeing, and expressing the information.

I am grateful to my friends who respond, even when I know they are busy.  

We all need help, sometimes more than others.  We get through this life by helping and being helped.

And that is always a good thing to remember when we see so much that is wrong in this world.  Lift up, don't beat down.